Here’s what Sacramento’s top chefs will make at the 2024 Tower Bridge Dinner

Couldn’t get tickets to Sacramento’s most exclusive dinner? Here’s what the chefs will serve.

The 11th annual Tower Bridge Dinner, hosted by Visit Sacramento as part of the otherwise-free Farm-to-Fork Festival, will host 880 lucky guests on Sept. 8 on the city’s yellow landmark. The dinner’s five chefs have already spent nine months testing recipes, and debuted their dishes at Sacramento City Unified School District’s Central Kitchen on Monday.

The $300-per-person tickets for the Tower Bridge Dinner, many of which are sold by the table to corporate sponsors, have all been claimed. Some small-scaled iterations of these dishes will also be served at the $125-per-person Grand Tasting on Sept. 20, along with bites from other local chefs.

Pre-set: Mezze platter by Seasons Kitchen & Bar chef Katerina Balagian.

A native of Armenia raised in Rhode Island, Balagian’s assortment of Middle Eastern dishes will be on tables as guests arrive. The platter includes Seasons’ signature muhammara made with roasted red peppers, walnuts, pomegranate molasses and Aleppo peppers imported from Syria, along with mutabal, a dip featuring tahini, lemon juice, cumin and eggplants from Woodland’s Center for Land-Based Learning.

Those dips are the intended targets for torshi, pickled turnips and daikon from Riverdog Farm in Guinda, and the Levantine flatbread lavash from Upper Crust Baking (Davis). Small cups of Capay Gold olive oil round out the Yolo County-centered starter.

First Course: Carrot-habanero aguachile from Nash & Proper chef/co-owner Cecil Rhodes II.

Known for his Nashville-style fried chicken, Rhodes instead used his Mexican-inspired chilled dish to highlight the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta’s native crawfish. He cured the blue shellfish from Cliff’s New Marina in the Delta and tossed it with clams, scallops and shrimp in the savory-spicy liquid.

The aguachile’s carrots come from Dwelley Family Farms in the Delta as well, as does the main ingredient for a side corn pudding. Smoked trout roe from California Caviar Co. tops the dish, which is closer to something Rhodes would prepare for Nash & Proper’s catering operation than the everyday fried chicken fare.

Second Course: Ricotta gnocchi from Ella Dining Room & Bar chef de cuisine Jaime Rathburn.

Rathburn’s dish features the odd coupling of zucchini and and blackberries as a tribute to her mother, who let those fruitful crops explode in the family’s backyard. Choosing pasta, meanwhile, was a personal note of resilience: Rathburn caught her hand in a pasta maker’s feeder slot as a young sous chef, was stuck for 30 minutes and ended up needing 22 stitches, leaving a scar that reminds her not to rush so much.

The cheese-filled dumplings in Rathburn’s dish are surrounded by zucchini butter and roasted zucchini from Twin Peaks Orchards (Newcastle) and Vega Farms (Dixon) and blackberries from Bea’s Blackberries in Clarksburg. Compressed shallots, opal basil and parsley and mint garnishes from Alemaya Farm (Guinda) and Arden Arcade microgreen grower GourmetnGreens complete the pasta course.

Third Course: Chicken Ballotine from The 7th Street Standard chef de cuisine Pedro DePina.

Mary’s Chicken is a favorite of Sacramento and Bay Area chefs — DePina has served it since Day 1 at The 7th Street Standard — and the Fresno County-farmed birds get center stage in this French preparation. DePina debones the chickens, stuffs them with ground chicken and serves alongside crimini, oyster and porcini mushrooms, charred figs from Medina Berry Farms (Watsonville) and crunchy chicken skin chicharrones.

A salad with Lollo Rossa lettuce (Babe Farms in Santa Maria), chicory (J. Marchini Farms in Merced County), blistered grapes, seed clusters and saba accompanies the meaty main.

Fourth Course: Goat tagine from Balagian.

Seasons’ chef gets her crack at a full course with this North African-inspired stew. She met the Superior Farms goats used in the entree at Capra Environmental Services in Rancho Cordova, where they stayed between fire-reduction grazing shifts around the Sacramento region.

Guinda-based Full Belly Farm and Riverdog Farm contributed the summer squash and roasted Jimmy Nardello peppers tossed in zhug and served with the tagine. A chilled celery root purée helps Balagian present the tagine as her take on a deconstructed shepherd’s pie, riffing on her favorite childhood homecooked meal outside of the Middle Eastern umbrella.

Fifth Course: Smoked beef rib from Beast + Bounty chef Brock Macdonald.

Macdonald will represent midtown Sacramento hotspot Beast + Bounty at the Tower Bridge Dinner, but wanted to tie in his new Elk Grove barbecue concept Slow & Low as well. Enter: the big, beefy ribs served on weekends in Old Town Elk Grove, variations of which have graced Beast + Bounty’s seasonal menu in the past.

The restaurant version doesn’t include grilled Twin Peaks white peaches, or a couple of East and Southeast Asian touches beside Stemple Creek Ranch (Tomales Bay) ribs. Nor does it feature sticky rice from West Sacramento’s True Origins Foods, a Vietnamese-inspired herb salad and Dwelley Family Farms pole beans tossed in chili crisp.

This story was originally published August 12, 2024 at 3:08 PM.